How should I go about channeling water away from my home?

The first step in channeling water away from your house is to make sure you home has gutters and downspouts long enough to get any water away from your foundation. Also make sure the area immediately near your foundation is lower than the ground at the foundation. Also make sure to provide proper drainage.

A good method for channeling water away from a house foundation is with a French drain. It is a trench filed with coarse rock, topped with weed barrier cloth, that drains towards a swale or rain garden.

There are several options for channeling water away from an area. This simplest method is to dig a ditch or trench, but may not be suitable for some areas, particularly close to the house. In those cases, installing a grate or drain, along with a drainage pipe, might be a more suitable method.

You will need to dig a small ditch in the path of the stream of water to move it away from your home. It may need to be only a few inches deep, but it will need to redirect the stream of water in a new direction to avoid flooding your house.